Category: <span>Mental Wellness</span>

Child Wellness Depression Mental Wellness SAD Uncategorized November 7, 2023 By Beth Church 0 Comments

Keeping Away the Winter Blues

Now that the days are getting shorter, colder, and the sun is shining less, sadness may creep into our daily mood more often. In fact, it’s not uncommon for many of us to begin to feel ‘the winter blues’ this time of year.

However, some experience more intense feelings known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD. This is a form of depression that lasts for a specific season of the year, typically the winter months, and goes away the rest of the year. During this time a person may experience the following symptoms: loss of interest in activities they typically enjoy, feeling sad most of the day, feeling easily fatigued, having trouble sleeping or sleeping too much, and/or increased feelings of hopelessness or guilt. If your winter blues are more intense, like described above, and have occurred for at least two winters, you may have SAD. There is research supporting treatment for SAD, so be sure to reach out to us if your winter blues have reached this level of intensity, we are happy to explain more and want to help.

To help combat the winter blues or SAD, the following research supported tips can help:

1. Get as much sun as possible

Exposure to less sunlight is one reason this season can be especially hard on us. Sunlight is known to affect areas of the brain that regulate mood and the sleep-wake cycle, as well as memory functioning. We feel happier and more ‘mentally sharp’ when we are getting consistent sunlight. One effective strategy to keep away the winter blues is to try to get sunlight shortly after you wake up. You can sit by the window while you eat breakfast or open the curtains and blinds after you wake up. Winter outdoor activities and sports can also help us get our daily allotment of rays. Even just a 15 minute walk has a positive impact on mood. Also, many people use a light therapy box to mimic outdoor light. This type of light may cause a chemical change in the brain that lifts your mood and helps decrease the feelings of tiredness and sleeping too much. Typically, a person using light therapy will sit in front of the light box first thing in the morning for a short period of time. Before deciding to start light therapy, it’s best to talk with your health care provider first.

2. Keep active and moving

Physical movement helps our brain produce neurotransmitters that support positive mood. However, as it gets chilly, our physical activity often reduces. As mentioned above, there are plenty of winter activities that can keep you active. Walking or hiking to take in the fall colors or snow-covered trees, skiing, ice skating, or snowshoeing are all great winter activities in Michigan. If being active in the cold isn’t your thing, there are plenty of opportunities for indoor activities: look for sports teams at your local community center, get a gym membership, start practicing yoga, or take a dance class. Any way to get exercise and keep your body moving will help destress and increase your endorphins for a boost of positive feelings.

3. Maintain connections and social support

Research indicates relationships with good communication, shared experiences and regular time spent together positively impact our moods and can make it less likely for the winter blues to turn into depression for you or your children. During the winter months it’s not uncommon to want to stay in and be less active. However, that can make us feel more isolated and make us feel even more down. Plan outings 15-60 days out to ensure you don’t isolate. Keep up with friends and let them know if you are feeling down. People around us often don’t realize or know how we are feeling, but care and want to help.

4. Stick to basics

Eating healthy and getting enough sleep are under-appreciated for maintaining your mental health. The fall season brings copious amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables to farmers markets and is a good time to try a new recipe or two. Making sure you’re eating regular meals and trying to stick to a balanced diet as much as you can during the holidays can help. Family meals are a great time to connect and catch up with each other. Involving children in meal planning or cooking with them can teach them important skills and connect. Getting sunlight first thing in the morning can help stabilize your circadian rhythm, stopping melatonin production to maintain regular sleep and wake times and get you more Vitamin D. Placing an importance on getting enough sleep can help with the fluctuations in mood and help regulate your emotions. It’s hard to be at our best for friends and family when we are not taking care of our physical and emotional needs.

5. Reach out sooner rather than later

If the winter blues last longer than 2 weeks or significantly impact you or your child’s functioning with friends, at school or work, or at home, it’s time to get real support or guidance. We encourage people to reach out before a crisis occurs, so that when difficulties arise, you or your child already have coping strategies and support in place.

If these activities do not help, or your symptoms worsen, contact us or talk to your health care provider.

Anxiety CBT Skills Depression Individual Treatment Mental Wellness Self-improvement Stress Anxiety • Coping Skills September 9, 2023 By Beth Church 0 Comments

Battling Autumn Anxiety: 3 Ways to Maintain Your Summer Mental Wellness Glow

As the leaves start to fall, so too can our mood. Despite the increase in demands from work and school, we don’t have to let Autumn Anxiety take hold. Let’s work together in small and creative ways to hang on to the resilience and mental wellness we cultivated, so that our inner summer shines through the fall and into winter.

1. Stay Present Focused

The busy bustle of fall threatens to push us into anxiety. But each day this season brings us a bit of change and we can use this to stay present focused. When we notice a change, we can stay in the present and not get swept up by anxiety or expectations about the future and all there is to do. Take a moment to do a mindfulness sensory exercise. Take 30 seconds to fully concentrate on one sensory experience of fall. Will it be the crisp air, changing colors of leaves, the taste of cider donuts? Fully exist and experience this moment; notice your heart rate drop and your mind clear.

2. Support and Shift Executive Functioning

Moving into fall often means significant change and transitions. School starts, workloads often increase, schedules change, routines are structured differently; it’s a lot all at once. When we have to hold more in our minds and coordinate more, stress, anxiety and low mood can creep in. But what if we invest time in creating better support for ourselves? Executive Functioning strategies can be a game changer in reducing stress. Also, what if we shift some of this burden to others, enabling them to function more independently?

What tasks are burdening you that others could be doing? Imagine NOT doing those things 30 days from now. If you find you are carrying a heavy mental load of others’ executive functioning (i.e. organizing, planning, gathering supplies/materials, strategizing, scheduling), it’s time to shift. We serve ourselves best by putting systems into place that increase others’ engagement and independence. While the initial planning and setting up of expectations or supports does take some time, and we have to be ok with mistakes and mess ups, the pay-off is beautiful and long-term. Setting up sustainable structures like visual schedules, laminated/reusable check lists, and nightly preparation routines can shift the executive functioning load. If you’re struggling to know where to start, MBH therapists can help identify how to shift these burdens and alleviate stress for the long haul.

3. New Fall Movement

Of all the health-related behaviors that affect our metal wellness positively, movement is at the top of the list. While we might be tempted to shift into sweater-ready, pumpkin spiced shut-ins, getting out and moving our bodies in the fall will stretch the resilience you built in the summer over into fall and winter. To keep yourself motivated and interested, what activities can you think of that you can only do in the fall? Are there certain outdoor markets that are fun to walk around? Hikes that are particularly beautiful in the fall?

As always, if you feel your mood shifting and Autumn Anxiety building, shoot us a text or give us a call. We can help you learn and practice mindfulness, shift the executive functioning load, and find creative ways to move through the season.

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CBT Skills Children Therapy Family Therapy Mental Wellness Self-improvement Teenage Therapy June 21, 2023 By Beth Church 0 Comments

5 Ways to Boost Summer Mental Health

We only get a couple months of warm weather and summer fun here in Michigan. Let’s make the best of these long summer days! Summer activities, routines, and events pose opportunities to build mental wellness – but we do have to be strategic. Here are 5 ways you can purposefully build and support mental wellness in your or your loved one’s lives this summer.

1. Power up Social Skills

Social skills are a major building block of resilience and success for kids and adults. Almost everyone can use some social skill building and summer is the perfect time to work on these strategies. Perhaps you or your child need help learning how to engage in successful introductions to new friends, asking others for help, setting appropriate boundaries, dealing with conflict, or either directing play/activities or going with the flow a bit more? Whatever might help increase confidence and success in social interactions, summertime is a great time to hone these skills.

Here’s how to do it – Make a small list of social skills to practice for the summer. Before a social interaction, identify one specific skill. Talk about the skill and role play the skill; ask when and how the skill might be used. After the social interaction, be sure to talk or journal about how it went. What went well? What could use improvement? What will you do differently next time?

Summer camps focused on building social skills are a great way to build these skills quickly and get professionally guided practice with other kids. If your child is entering grades 2^nd through 5^th grade, you can sign them up for the Boys Super Social Summer Camp. Girls entering 5^th through 8^th grade can sign up for the Girl Strong Empowerment camp, which focuses on empowering social skill development for middle schoolers.

More info on MBH camps

2. Leverage Schedule Changes to Build Executive Functioning Skills

While it feels wonderful to be freed from the typical school year schedule, after a few days or weeks, kids often become bored and/or irritable, and parents can feel overwhelmed. Adults and kids who struggle with executive functioning may find schedule and routine changes especially difficult. Summer is an opportunity to develop and practice new executive functioning strategies. For instance, plotting out the daily and weekly schedule can help everyone in the household orient to changing routines and expectations. For families, this might include mapping out parent work schedules, who is on kid caretaking duty each day, and scheduled activities such as practices, social hangouts, and camps. However, be sure to mindfully schedule free time! Purposefully put it on the calendar so you or your child knows when a block of free time will occur, and we can look forward to and schedule something fun. If your child or teen continues to struggle with their summer schedule, completing daily routines, or getting stuck when faced with transitions, make the schedule visual – color code different types of activities and include pictures. It might seem silly to do for an older kid or teen – but being able to orient oneself to the day with a brief glance really helps regulate emotions and executive functioning.

3. Mindful (not mindless) Screen Time

As daily routines and schedules loosen up, screens often fill in the blanks. However, increased screen time is typically associated with decreased positive mood, increased anxiety, and increased irritability. Summer is a great time to facilitate insights and skills that increase screen time regulation – set a daily screen ‘allowance’, ask yourself or your kid how this allowance will be ‘spent’, and follow up by asking how it went or sitting down together to look at screen time on a tracking app. If you or your child has trouble conceptualizing their screen time allowance, make it visual – draw a circle or bar graph to represent the number of minutes that can be ‘spent’ on each app or game. To increase insight and motivation to self-regulate screen time, reflect on days in which you or your child used screens more; how do your/their bodies and brains feel? On days screens are used less; how do your/their bodies and brains feel? Kids and adults often both need help developing the ability to reflect on how screens actually make their brains and bodies feel and enacting effective regulation skills.

4. Focused Bonding

Sometimes the adventures we can have during summer are the perfect prescription for family or relationship closeness. Research shows that when families feel close and connected, including strong child-parent communication, bonding time with siblings and regular family mealtimes, kids and teens are less likely to experience depression. Relationship closeness built on shared experience also impacts adults’ mood and anxiety positively. However, the summer schedule can be overwhelming. One trick is to build in small, focused bursts of relationship focused time. This might look like an end of day 10-minute check in with purposeful physical contact, watching a short video clip that’s part of a series 3-4 times per week, or sharing meals together regularly. Building relationship routines that include regular, seemingly inconsequential time spent together, as well as larger adventures will help you and/or your child build resilience.

5. Address Mental Health Issues Now

Don’t wait for mental health issues to go away on their own. If emotional or behavioral difficulties last more than 2 weeks, it’s not a ‘phase’, get real support and guidance. Summer is a great time to start therapy, engage in a short-term treatment plan to build resilience, or engage in a camp supporting mental wellness. We encourage people to reach out before a crisis occurs, so that when difficult situations or events occur, you or your child already have coping strategies in place.